About Me

I'm a semi-retired professional man, living in the Midwestern United States. This blog is a personal blog and is not directly connected with my professional practice (although I may draw upon my professional experiences, as well as my personal experiences, in writing my blog posts). This is a place for personal, not professional, opinions.

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Art

12/14/2018

If you're interested in transcendence and the relation of music, beauty, and religious faith to the same (and to the permanent things), then this will be one the most interesting 90 minutes you'll spend this month. If not, there's nothing to see here. Move along.

07/21/2018

Follow, poet, follow rightTo the bottom of the night,With your unconstraining voiceStill persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verseMake a vineyard of the curse,Sing of human unsuccessIn a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heartLet the healing fountain start,In the prison of his daysTeach the free man how to praise.

In whatever other areas of life we may come up short, let's not give up on the healing power of the beauty of art and music. Let's once again make a "vineyard of the curse," and, if only for five minutes, "let the healing fountain start." Tomorrow is time enough to barrel down another wrong path. For the moment, let us pause in the peace of merely "being."

07/16/2018

The encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way opens our eyes, so that later, from this experience, we take the criteria for judgement and can correctly evaluate the arguments. For me an unforgettable experience was the Bach concert that Leonard Bernstein conducted in Munich after the sudden death of Karl Richter. I was sitting next to the Lutheran Bishop Hanselmann. When the last note of one of the great Thomas-Kantor-Cantatas triumphantly faded away, we looked at each other spontaneously and right then we said: “Anyone who has heard this, knows that the faith is true.”--Benedict XVI

To Music--Rainer Maria Rilke

Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps:silence of paintings. You language where all languageends. You timestanding vertically on the motion of mortal hearts.

Feelings for whom? O you the transformationof feelings into what?--: into audible landscape.You stranger: music. You heart-spacegrown out of us. The deepest space in us,which, rising above us, forces its way out,--holy departure:when the innermost point in us standsoutside, as the most practiced distance, as the otherside of the air:pure,boundless,no longer habitable.

10/12/2017

Lying in a hospital bed for four days, while doctors filled me full of increasingly powerful antibiotics in a race to find one that would kill the drug-resistant bacteria that was racing through my blood stream before it ended in sepsis (they found the magic bullet, albeit the side effects knocked me down for another week and plague me still), gave me additional time to winnow the chaff from the wheat in my personal priorities. This has been a hell of year for me, personally. Yet, here we are. "Takin' a lickin' and keepin' on tickin'."

If you're "a believer," you believe that there is a purpose, a meaning, to be found in suffering. Certainly, Viktor Frankl thought so, and I tend not to argue with him on such matters. People smarter than I, and there are millions of them found in any social media comments box you might choose to enter, might disagree. They're free to do so, and I wish them well in their personal search for "meaning" in their lives in a relativistic world.

It may be that, as some commentary by Catholic thinkers I've read asserts, suffering is a means of "purification" in a religious sense, perhaps even a means of penance for our past sins. If so, I merit whatever penance God intends. I've decided that such speculation is above my intellectual pay grade, and that the best I can do is to (1) simply accept it as it comes, (2) offer it up to God through prayer for whatever purpose He might choose (but especially for the repose of the souls of those loved ones who have passed before me and of other souls who have no one else to pray for them, and for the well-being and peace of those still living who are either my friends or my enemies), and (3) focus in each moment on what brings me peace. For example, focusing on the beauty of this, my favorite time of year: fall.

I recommend that you double-click on the video below to view it full screen. In that way, you can also close the annoying adds that pop up.

11/21/2016

You are tired (I think) Of the always puzzle of living and doing; And so am I.

Come with me thenAnd we'll leave it far and far away-(Only you and I understand!)

You have played (I think) And broke the toys you were fondest of And are a little tired now; Tired of things that break and- Just tired.

So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart- Open to me! For I will show you the places Nobody knows And if you like The perfect places of Sleep.

Ah come with me! I'll blow you that wonderful bubble the moon That floats forever and a day; I'll sing you the jacinth song Of the probable stars; I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream Until I find the Only Flower Which shall keep (I think) your little heart While the moon comes out of the sea.

One of the dangers of aging, I think, is that of becoming boxed up in containers of our own construction, composed of the memories of what was, was not, and could have been. These memories, often suffused with regret, can prevent us from moving beyond regret, from moving forward. Viktor Frankl's advice for minimizing regret has always stuck with me, however much I might have honored it in the breach: "So live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!" Actually, for some of us, we do seem to have "lived already," to the extent that when presented with similar situations we have encountered in the past, we seem to act as wrongly as we did the first time.

As true as that might be of those of us who are "slow learners" of the book of life, Frankl also gives us hope. From "Man's Search for Meaning":

Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.

In an instant. Now, there's a goal that is never beyond our grasp until the moment we die. Perhaps, it is even achievable thereafter.

Mathew Perryman Jones and Mindy Smith wrote a song a few years ago that seems to have received the most airplay as background to prime-time soap operas. Notwithstanding that questionable pedigree, I like it for the contrast its lyrics make between the initial and ending stanzas. To me, it conveys the feeling that we can overcome regret-induced paralysis and move forward by an act of the will, motivated by a desire that whatever has gone before, we do not want to miss a minute of what dreams may come.

Watching moments pass I wanna run away from it But I still won't take that step

Locked inside the glass An empty box of memories And a heart full of regret

[...]

After the fall we can recover what's left in the dark Can still be discovered I won't give up I won't give up no no

After the fall we can recover what's left in the dark Can still be discovered I won't give up I won't give up oh no

11/11/2016

Always we are following a light, Always the light recedes; with groping hands We stretch toward this glory, while the lands We journey through are hidden from our sight Dim and mysterious, folded deep in night, We care not, all our utmost need demands Is but the light, the light! So still it stands Surely our own if we exert our might.

Fool! Never can'st thou grasp this fleeting gleam, Its glowing flame would die if it were caught, Its value is that it doth always seem But just a little farther on. Distraught, But lighted ever onward, we are brought Upon our way unknowing, in a dream.

Leonard Cohen died yesterday. Earlier this year, his ex-lover, subject of one of his famous songs ("So Long, Marianne"), and muse, Marianne Ihlen, died of cancer. Shortly before her death, Cohen wrote her a touching letter that included a prediction of his own death.

And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that.

But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.

Cohen wrote many moving songs and poems. My late sister, a musician herself, loved Cohen's work. As a young man, I was less enamored, but the older I've become, the more I've come to appreciate his sensibility, especially his expression of a profound sense of the mystery of life and a humility as to his occasional arrogance in thinking that he was ever in control of it. Among the songs he wrote that embody that sensibility is "A Thousand Kisses Deep," which he later expanded into a longer poem.

Even though the dreamy aspect of it begins to prevail, and the sense of having no control begins to be apparent. The evidence accumulates that you're not running the show. You still have to make choices as if you were running the show. But you make your choices with the intuitive understanding that it's unfolding as it must. And that's why I use that phrase "a thousand kisses deep." That's the intuitive understanding of the fundamental mystery. And if you can relax in that, or if you can even touch it, or if it asserts itself from time to time, then the invincible defeat is transcended.

[...]

It’s a song that summaries quite well this feeling of invincible defeat anyone is affected by. The feeling that everything is temporary and unsubstantial. Of course you have to live your life as though it were all real, but the fundamental reality is far beyond the human’s understanding. Nowadays we know much more the mechanism of the Human, we’re decoding his genes, but no one can tell what is the meaning of that “Boogie street”. You can only have this feeling everything escapes us. Finally it’s an instructive feeling, that drive us ahead.

Cohen also observed that his commentaries on the lyrics were a poor substitute for the lyrics and music themselves. As an artist, if he'd been capable of expressing his insights in a more clear and powerful manner, he would have done so. The song says what he wanted to say as best as he could say it.

I can not think of a better interpreter of Cohen's song than Jackson Browne, a singer who's songs I've embedded in this blog's posts frequently. As he does in his own compositions, Browne "gets" the mixture of mystery, regret, melancholy, world-weariness, love, and wonder that Cohen conveys, and, through his own musical skills and those of the seasoned professionals with which he surrounds himself, delivers Cohen's message in a pitch-perfect performance.

It's time to burn down the barriers we voluntarily erect. It's time for each of us to wander away from Boogie Street and to do our best, in the little time any of us have remaining, to transcend our inevitable defeat.

The ponies run, the girls are young,The odds are there to beat.You win a while, and then it’s done –Your little winning streak.And summoned now to dealWith your invincible defeat,You live your life as if it’s real,A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed,I’m back on Boogie Street.You lose your grip, and then you slipInto the Masterpiece.And maybe I had miles to drive,And promises to keep:You ditch it all to stay alive,A Thousand Kisses Deep.

And sometimes when the night is slow,The wretched and the meek,We gather up our hearts and go,A Thousand Kisses Deep.

Confined to sex, we pressed againstThe limits of the sea:I saw there were no oceans leftFor scavengers like me.I made it to the forward deck.I blessed our remnant fleet –And then consented to be wrecked,A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed,I’m back on Boogie Street.I guess they won’t exchange the giftsThat you were meant to keep.And quiet is the thought of you,The file on you complete,Except what we forgot to do,A Thousand Kisses Deep.

And sometimes when the night is slow,The wretched and the meek,We gather up our hearts and go,A Thousand Kisses Deep.

The ponies run, the girls are young,The odds are there to beat.You win a while, and then it’s done –Your little winning streak.And summoned now to dealWith your invincible defeat, You live your life as if it’s real,A Thousand Kisses Deep.

07/17/2016

Love in my heart was a fresh tide flowing Where the starlike sea gulls soar;The sun was keen and the foam was blowing High on the rocky shore.

But now in the dusk the tide is turning, Lower the sea gulls soar,And the waves that rose in resistless yearning Are broken forevermore.

I've been thinking about forgiveness, and what that particular act of the will requires. When I was a "devout secularist" or "evangelical agnostic" or whatever I was before I returned to my faith, I would have thought that a heart can be pierced or shattered so violently by another human being's acts, omissions or words that, after the broken heart has been patched, it remains too fragile to attempt to try to restore the previous relationship to any semblance of what it was before the offense occurred that pierced or shattered it. I based this assumption on my expertise at wounding others. I mean, I have burned more bridges in my personal and professional lives than William Tecumseh Sherman burned on his march to the sea in 1864. Almost all of those bridges were burned willingly and -- I'm now ashamed to admit -- many were burned with relish. For Kermit the Frog, it may not be easy being green, but for Kevin the Toad, it was easy being a cruel bastard (actually, it came naturally). I didn't realize until relatively recently that it left scars on me as well as on some of my "opponents." Attempting to reconcile in any manner with such human beings seemed to me to not only be extremely unlikely but, in fact, ill-advised. The very act of attempted reconciliation itself could rip off the scar tissue and reopen old wounds, making presently worse a bad situation that had faded from conscious memory. "Let sleeping dogs lie," one former friend-turned-enemy once advised, and I agreed (although not overtly with her at the time).

Certainly reconciliation involves forgiveness and an apology, but it's more. Reconciliation goes beyond words to actions. Reconciliation restores the relationship to where it was before the offense. It accepts and integrates the offender back into our life.

This is not the "gospel" most of us want to hear; however, it was precisely the good news that Bishop Joseph Ekuwen of Nigeria announced at a national Catholic conference in England this past summer. In explaining the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, Bishop Ekuwen said: "When someone offends you and makes an apology, you forgive them but keep them at an arms distance. You refuse to re-admit the other into your life. When you do this, reconciliation is missing."

Instead of keeping the other at an arm's distance, the bishop said, we must ask God for the grace of reintegration, of restoration. We must accept the offender back into our lives just as God accepted us back into His life.

[...]

As children of God we must try to live out our Christian life in imitation of God. That means we can't just forgive, we must also reconcile. Here, Bishop Ekuwen was very direct: "Is there someone on this globe who offended you and you have forgiven, but not allowed back into your life as it was before the offense?" he asked the crowd. "This is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of our Christian life because many people forgive, but they do not reconcile, they do not take back fully those who offended them."

He's not kidding. I've seen it in living color: families split by squabbles over money; two Christian sisters who were best friends but now cordially tolerate each other because of an incident with their children; spouses who occupy the same living quarters but are emotionally distant. As for me, it didn't take two seconds for the Holy Spirit to show me the people I keep at an arms distance: my former husband, two of my sisters, friends whose values I don't share. And now the bishop asking me to integrate these people back into my life. That's beyond heroic; it's saintly.

Well, here's another seemingly impossible task thrown in my lap! Ignorance is bliss, and if I'd just live in a bubble of ignorance I'd be a lot "happier," but I insist upon praying, reading and talking, and attempting to plumb the depths of my faith. I'll be damned if I don't keep running into a speed bump on the basics. This happens when you have to exit the starting gate with over 40 years of bad habits burned into a difficult personality. You don't start the race sitting at the pole, you start it back in the pack. Way back.

Now, I haven't killed anyone, or poisoned their cattle. On the other hand, anyone who's read this blog for any length of time understands that I can inadvertently wound the feelings of human beings I genuinely like. Those I don't like get the extra, special acid bath treatment. A confessor recently told me that for most of my life, there has been no "down time" between my experience of the emotion of anger and my response to it. That's unfortunate when you're "blessed" with an acid tongue and the complete lack of restraint in your willingness to employ it to maximum effect. He suggested that when I experience the emotion of anger, before I display any reaction to it, I ask myself the question: "How would God wish me to respond?" I told him that such a process was going to be difficult, because it would not only require self-discipline, but the almost certain abandonment of the use of my favorite epithets. He advised me that it was not "almost certain" but "certain."

The bigger problem with reconciliation, as I see it, is that to be completely reconciled with another requires that the other wish to be reconciled. I suspect that most, if not all, of those who I've forgiven would, to the extent that they even give me a passing thought, ask themselves the question, "I wonder if that lousy SOB's died of cancer yet? I sure hope so, and I hope that his death was both lingering and extremely painful." It takes two to tango (as one of my commenters likes to say), and what if your "partner in reconciliation" sings (ala Fred Astair) "Won't Dance, Can't Make Me"? Is it enough that you're honestly willing to allow them "back into your life as it was before the offense" whether or not they are interested? Moreover, how do you begin to reconcile with someone whose last words to you might have been "if I EVER hear from you again I'll stick a fork in your neck"?

Finally, I've got to be honest: there are a couple of people I've offended who I considered either borderline or over-the-border whack-jobs, and I'd be reluctant to have them back in my life "as it was prior to the offense" because I wasn't too comfortable with them in my life before I intentionally blew them off. Do I get "a pass" on them, or is that merely rationalization? I'm good at rationalization. I'm also very good at compartmentalization, denial, and various other forms of self-deception. In fact, I'm quite skilled in their use.

Who said religion was a crutch? I'll admit that I not only need a crutch, I need a motorized wheelchair ala Stephen Hawking, complete with voice-translating computer, anti-lock brakes, and a turbo charger, because this "Catholic thing" is the hardest thing I've ever attempted to do, especially since I know that I'll never get it right until -- if I'm lucky -- I die, and then who knows how long I'll spend thereafter being purified in Purgatory. Here on Earth, during your life, every day you fall short, but you must pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep trying, keep giving, keep forgiving, keep "loving." I'd argue that being a Christian, which means being a steward, is too tough for many, maybe for most, especially where there's so much "stuff" to fill up our otherwise meaningless existence. I'd argue that those who retreat from the rigors of believing and living this faith are the ones who just aren't tough enough.

Rant is done. Over and out.

Stones taught me to fly Love taught me to lie Life taught me to die So it's not hard to fall When you float like a cannonball